


Mourning

by maryagrawatson



Series: Mina [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Grief/Mourning, John is a Bit Not Good, Sherlock Is A Bit Not Good
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-04
Updated: 2015-02-04
Packaged: 2018-03-10 10:22:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3286790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maryagrawatson/pseuds/maryagrawatson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Mary dies, John and Sherlock grieve.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mourning

After Mary's funeral, John doesn't talk for two weeks.  
  
I move in to take care of him and Mina. When mum insists on moving in, too, I decide I can use the help. For once, she lets me set the lead and I divide the chores between us. I don't mind cooking, but I let her shop and do the washing up. I put the laundry on, but she folds it. I'm up at night with Mina, but she does the mornings. We make it work.  
  
John eats, bathes, uses the toilet, and holds Mina with a little prompting, but that's it. He spends his days on the sofa looking out the window into the garden.  
  
There's no time for my own grief. Between the nappy changes and the loads of laundry, three meals a day and lullabies, I am able to push Mary out of my mind. Now is not time to think about the senseless waste of her death, about John who has lost half of himself, about Mina who will never remember her mama. I cannot stop to ponder a life without my dear friend, one of only two people I was ever truly comfortable with from the first instance of meeting. There is a growing lump in my chest that I know will need to be excised, but now is not the time.  
  
Exactly thirteen days after we buried Mary, I come down to the kitchen to find John showered, shaved, dressed, and fixing breakfast. His eyes are clear. My chest feels impossibly tight and I run to the back garden without speaking to him.  
  
I am not ashamed of weeping or of my grief, but I need a moment to myself, to acknowledge the depth of my own loss.  
  
Like John, I had much to forgive Mary for. And like him, I decided she was worth forgiving. Until her final breath, she worked to be the person we both believed she could be and we learned to trust her again and our love for her grew stronger.  
  
John gives me some time to be alone and then he joins me and we are holding each other and our tears are mixing and the lump in my chest finally begins to shrink.  
  
When we come in, mum makes us tea and fusses over us as only mothers can, as Mina will never know, and we cry some more. But this time, we laugh at our own soppiness and I know that we will be okay.

**Author's Note:**

> Just another snippet in the Mina universe to follow up my proper story 'The Clues He Missed.'


End file.
